I decided 8-9 weeks ago, it would be fun to try out Ancestry DNA. What did I have to lose? I was fully anticipating a pie graph that looked something like this: 50% Polish, 25% Irish and 25% Scottish.

ha.

The Ancestry DNA kit is fairly simple. They send you a box with a little tube (which you spit into) and a cap with a blue-ish type liquid inside. Once you have deposited your saliva into the tube, you place the cap on top and give it a good shake. Once that’s done, you slip it into a small bag and seal it within the pre-paid box and mail the sucker off.

Easy Peasy!

Tuesday I received an email from Ancestry.ca stating my DNA results were ready to be viewed. OoOo goody!

Low and behold… my results came back – basically illustrating to me that I’m everything, but Scottish.

BEHOLD, I ALEX:
Highland Dancer, wearer of kilts, bagpipe lover, shortbread enthusiast and lover of plaid, is not Scottish.

My Nana, Glenna May Hare (I have purposely bolded her last name) who hailed from the East Coast… assumed she was Scottish. Because, that’s what her parents told her. Apparently, this was VERY UNTRUE.

Her entire life, she believed she was Scottish. The funnier part, my Grandpa used to tease her, claiming “Hare” wasn’t a Scottish name and that someone must have changed it from “O’Hare” to Hare, or something along those lines.

Hindsight, he was on the money with such a notion.

FUNNIER: Grandpa was a strict Irish-Catholic, heaven forbid my Nana marry an Irish-Catholic, because she was “Scots-Protestant”. Guess who was also excommunicated from the Catholic Church promptly after marrying my Nana? Poor Stanley. All those years, married to an Irish woman. That’d get anyone’s Irish up.

ha ha ha

According to Ancestry I am: 39% Eastern European, 11% Western European (ok, so a lot of Europa here) and 33% Irish.

So here’s the real story (thanks to Aunt Linda), of how this Scottish business buggered everything up.

Apparently, way back in the day – people hated the Irish. One of the “Hares” decided to change their last name from O’Hare to Hare.

From what I’ve read, during the years of the Great Famine, New Brunswick had a massive flux of Irish immigrants entering the Province. This caused alarm to the already settled East Coast Protestants – who were already in economic turmoil. When the Irish arrived, they were torn between their shared Catholic religion with the Acadian population, and their language shared with the Protestants. Throughout the 1840’s, Protestants began to blame the Irish immigrants for their province’s economic distress. This in turn caused extreme tension between the two groups of people, which resulted in violence and fear.

From my reading, I have determined this one Hare made an extremely wise decision. In changing the name from O’Hare to Hare, he kept his family from being ostracized; this also kept them safe and under the radar. This is something I’ll have to research and dig a bit more into, which is pretty exciting!